Slain terror victim's killers get life sentences
Youssef Kamil and Mohamad Abu al-Roub who murdered Reuven Schmerling in a warehouse in Kafr Qassem last October on his 70th birthday also ordered to pay NIS 250,000 each to the family members.
In March, Youssef Kamil and Mohamad Abu al-Roub were indicted for killing Schmerling after confessing to the murder as part of a plea bargain.
On the eve of Sukkot, October 4, Schmerling, a contractor from Elkana, arrived at his warehouse in Kafr Qassem. After knocking at the door, Kamil and Abu al-Roub opened it to let him in when they were reprimanded for only being "good at sleeping and eating."
The two entered Israel in September 2017 to work without required permits. Kamil planned to use his stay in Israel to carry out a terror attack and to kill a Jew and asked Abu al-Roub if he wanted to take part. Originally, the latter declined.
Against a background of disputes, the two, who both worked in Schmerling’s warehouse, eventually resolved that he would be their victim in a premeditated plot.
Kamil was asked by Schmerling to load a forklift battery onto his vehicle. After doing so, Kamil returned to the room when the two decided to carry out the attack.
According to the plan detailed in the indictment, the two culprits agreed that Abu al-Roub would lead Schmerling into the room pretending that the fridge was broken and distract him while Kamil would stab him with the 18-inch knife they had purchased.
Kamil called a driver and had him come to pick them up to ensure they would be able to escape immediately after the murder. Shortly thereafter, while Schmerling was checking the fridge, Kamil pulled out the knife from the mattress and stabbed Schmerling behind his left shoulder.
In an attempt to defend himself, Schmerling picked up a chair in the room and hit Kamil with it in the leg. Abu al-Roub then pushed Schmerling and beat him around the head with a fan nearby while Kamil continued to stab him repeatedly in his stomach, chest and elsewhere.
Abu al-Roub then left the room and returned shortly after with a pickax by the door and stuck Schmerling with it in the stomach.
The indictment highlights that due to the knife bending in the process of the attack, Kamil threw it on the floor and took the pickax from al-Roub and used it to strike Schmerling in the head.
Schmerling is survived by four children: Shai Schmerling (36), Yonit Tsafrir (44), Idit Betzer (46) Shiri Brand (47) and 19 grandchildren. Four days after the incident, the media published that the terrorists had been captured and that this was a nationalistic murder.
The family read a letter to a judge in the terrorists’ trial in an attempt to convince him to toughen the sentencing.https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5293356,00.html
"The worsening of conditions for terrorists' imprisonment, who murder deliberately, only out of hatred for the citizens of Israel, will serve as an important bargaining chip against the terrorist organizations, who are known to not respect international law, and will serve as a deterrence,” reads the letter.
“Is this not the purpose of the law? As one whose world has been destroyed, I urge you, please, do not be kind to the murderers and perhaps we will be able to deter and even prevent the next murder, the destruction of another family."
